Species Profile: Tiger Tail Seahorse

Hello again, welcome back to animals under threat. Today, we will be covering a species of seahorse that has gained vulnerable status due to bycatch, coastal development and trades. Please give a warm welcome to the Tiger Tail Seahorse (Hippocampus comes).

Paolo Rossi/Guylian Seahorses of the World 2005 (via Project Seahorse)

The Tiger Tail Seahorse belongs to the family of Syngnathidae which is a family of fish that includes seahorses, pipefishes and seadragons. The colour of this seahorse alternates between yellow and black with the stripes beginning at the belly and continue to the tip of the tail. Unlike most fish, the Tiger Tail Seahorse does not have scales, but bony plates which is arranged in ring throughout the body (Job et al, 2006). They are mostly found with their tail wrapped around a stationary object as they swim very poorly. Tiger Tail seahorse swim by using their rapidly moving dorsal fin and use pectoral fins to steer and use their long snout to suck up small fish/shrimp, coral and plankton (Lin et al, 2016).

Paolo Rossi/Guylian Seahorses of the World 2005 (via Project Seahorse)

https://animalcorner.co.uk/seahorse-anatomy/

Tiger Tail seahorses are mostly found in coastal areas of Southeast Asia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Andaman Island. Their prefer habitat are coral reefs, seagrass beds and macroalgal beds in shallow waters around 10m to the low tide line (Lim, 2015). Seahorses have a unique way of reproduction as they perform a courtship ritual that may last over several days. Male Seahorses carry the eggs in a brood pouch which can contain 1-2000 eggs. When the eggs hatch, the young are released from the pouch and are left to the mercy of predators or ocean currents (Morgan and Vincent, 2007).

https://www.seahorseworlds.com/seahorse-reproduction/

The main threats to the Tiger Tail seahorse are bycatch, coastal development and trades. The seahorses are caught by accident when fishing. Coastal development adds the risk on pollution to the seahorse’s habitat as it damages the reef/seagrass beds/macroalgal beds that the seahorse needs to survive. The pet trade/medicine trade is a big threat as the seahorse is used in traditional medicine and are popular as pets (Lim, 2015).

Seahorse and scorpion skewers by Ginny Freeman 

Next time, we will be covering the dugong as it has come under threat from many factors.

References

Job, S., Buu, D. & Vincent, A. 2006, "Growth and Survival of the Tiger Tail Seahorse, Hippocampus comes", Journal of the World Aquaculture Society, vol. 37, no. 3, pp. 322-327

Lim, A. 2015. Hippocampus comes (errata version published in 2018). The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2015: e.T41008A128958172.

Lin, Q., Fan, S., Zhang, Y., Xu, M., Zhang, H., Yang, Y., Lee, A.P., Woltering, J.M., Ravi, V., Gunter, H.M., Luo, W., Gao, Z., Lim, Z.W., Qin, G., Schneider, R.F., Wang, X., Xiong, P., Li, G., Wang, K., Min, J., Zhang, C., Qiu, Y., Bai, J., He, W., Bian, C., Zhang, X., Shan, D., Qu, H., Sun, Y., Gao, Q., Huang, L., Shi, Q., Meyer, A. & Venkatesh, B. 2016, "The seahorse genome and the evolution of its specialized morphology", Nature, vol. 540, no. 7633, pp. 395-399.

Morgan, S.K. & Vincent, A.C.J. 2007, "The ontogeny of habitat associations in the tropical tiger tail seahorse Hippocampus comes Cantor, 1850", Journal of Fish Biology, vol. 71, no. 3, pp. 701-724

Picture references

https://animalcorner.co.uk/seahorse-anatomy/

https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/41008/128958172

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seahorse By Shyamal

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seahorse By ginny freeman from Yokosuka (Kanagawa), Japan

https://www.seahorseworlds.com/seahorse-reproduction/